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Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

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Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#731

Post by jsjohnst »

hattmall wrote: post #709
toddmatthews wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I agree. When I first saw the 1st gen iPhone I was so impressed with it, I went out and got one a few days later. This is before the App Store. Yes compared to today it might “suck” compared to the latest version, but the first iPhone was super compelling by itself at the time and started selling very well

Yeah if the first version doesn't take off that's generally not a good sign. 1st Iphone did extremely well.

> 1st Iphone did extremely well

Citation needed. The 1st gen iPhone sold 6 million units over two years. The Nokia N95 (not a super mainstream device, but in a similarish price category) sold 10M. Other Nokia phones of the time period sold 100+ million devices. BlackBerry, LG, and Sony/Ericcson was in the tens of millions per device model.

Let’s not forget:

1. The iPhone didn’t support 3G, which essentially all other phones of a similar price point had

2. Was only available for AT&T customers in the US (then still known as Cingular Wireless)

3. Cost significantly more ($500-600 w/ two year contract) than the average consumer paid for phones (almost always under $150 with contract, but usually “free”) at the time.

4. No App Store

5. No cut and paste

6. No removable battery

7. No physical keyboard (a positive for me, but was a deal breaker for so many back then)

That’s not to say the original iPhone wasn’t amazing in many ways, but let’s also remember the past accurately.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#732

Post by GeekyBear »

PJDK wrote: post #727
GeekyBear wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> viable consumer product status (read: enough adoption for the device to be profitable) seems very far away He mentions a few short term use cases for the current hardware. For example: Productivity on the go (A laptop with the headset for multiple virtual displays) and Live Sports. > Apple Immersive on Vision Pro is a transformative experience in terms of video quality and its ability to deliver a real sense of pre…

I've heard the sport idea thrown around a few times, but I'm not sure I buy it. If you go to a sports event you are mostly buying the experience of being there, the energy of the crowd, the cheering all that stuff. The actual experience of seeing what's happening is not really better is it? That's why the stadiums have screens in them. Replicating that experience at home is more like getting people around to watch a…

> I'm not sure I buy it.

"legitimately better than a regular 4K TV broadcast by enabling hardcore fans to feel much closer to the action" sounds like it offers something new.

People who are sports enthusiasts have a proven willingness to drop thousands of dollars on large screen televisions, streaming services like NFL Red Zone, or thousand dollar Superbowl tickets, so the potential for sales is there.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#733

Post by parentheses »

lynndotpy wrote: post #672
zmmmmm wrote: post #481

Coming from a senior Oculus lead, the most interesting thing about this write up for me, is what it lacks: it says almost nothing about the software stack / operating system. Still 100% talking about hardware at the bottom and end user applications at the other end. But there is no discussion of the platform which to me is actually the highest value proposition Apple is bringing here. In short: Apple has made a fully…

For me personally, it's definitely the platform. Requiring a Meta / Facebook account for already-purchased Oculuses, retroactively bricking devices and deleting software which was bought before that requirement, has put Oculus firmly in the "hardware I will never consider in my life" camp. It's an incredible amount of goodwill to burn from a company with so little to spare, and I'm surprised it hasn't come up yet in…

You're comparing a $300 product from a company that profits on analyzing their customers to a $3500 product from a hardware company.

This is not a fair comparison. They're motivated differently.

Furthermore, the "anti-account" viewpoint is making a privacy issue out of a pinch or friction point. Accounts are required for both devices. If you bought a device which allowed you to buy apps, the experience would be horrible without an account. If most people are willing and it's a better experience, it makes sense to force everyone into the same rails to reduce implementation cost. If it increases revenue, there's yet another reason to do it. It's ridiculous to be in an ideological minority and expect a company to bend to that when it's not in their best interest.

While I prefer Apple products because , Meta and Apple are doing the same thing here. The only difference is that Apple has higher current trustworthiness. This is also the reason they can release a $3500 headset.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#734

Post by jayd16 »

brookst wrote: post #721
jayd16 wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that Apple is focusing on 3d widgets as an app primitive but is it really that hard to put that into Oculus/Android? Android actually does have widgets. What about the OS precludes it from what Apple has done? There's some hard decisions around forcing everyone into their custom material that Apple made so that they can handle the rendering more deeply....but is that really a core OS thing? Seems like it doesn…

It’s not so much difficulty as system architecture. Oculus just doesn’t have an OS layer, at least not in the sense of a platform that helps applications share resources and interact with each other. The Oclulus platform is more like a classic video game console; there are system APIs, but they are designed to be used by single-tasking applications. And for the user, the Oculus system UI is really an app launcher /ta…

Huh? I'm very confused as to what you mean. It's a customized version of Android. All the Android multi-tasking and app pause and resume life-cycle stuff should still be in there. Most of their ecosystem is heavy duty games that use all the device's resources (kicking out other apps from the working set), but it's definitely a multi-tasking OS.

I really do not think 3D widgets would require an entirely new OS. The main app switcher would need a revamp and they would need to re-purpose or build out some new app life-cycle callbacks to handle widget focus and interaction but it all seems very doable and not much harder than what they've already done.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#735

Post by tracerbulletx »

jsjohnst wrote: post #729
tracerbulletx wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are more than enough higher income people who would pay 5k just for a thing to watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane.

> watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane. As someone who’s worn mine to watch movies on multiple flights, the problem is two fold. 1. The device is ridiculously hard to get into “travel mode” on a plane. Especially if the device was powered off previously and you have to enter a passcode. Each time the “tracking was lost” notification is shown it forces you to start over…

That's a bummer, wonder if a third party strap with a different weight balance could make it comfortable enough.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#736

Post by onethought »

bigyikes wrote: post #469
onethought wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s genuinely better than a 5k monitor. In the recent update it now lets you mouse off your Mac and onto vision apps just like iPad hands over. It made me switch my desk setup to have the desk attached to my chair so I can have 360 range of screens. The resolution is stupidly high. I’ve attempted a coding workflow in all of the quests and it just wasn’t possible. It’s awesome in vision

Does it require light to work? What about space? Could you e.g. work in a dark closet, as an extreme example? Do those semi-realistic virtual avatars work for non-FaceTime apps like Zoom?

No. Works in the dark. The vision has IR lights on it.

No the personas aren’t right. They just creep people out. They need more work, or some basic editablity. It generally nails your eyes perfectly at the expense of everything else.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#737

Post by the_duke »

hedora wrote: post #95
65 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll only buy a VR device if it's in the form of glasses, not big goggles I need to strap to my face.

My main concern with the vision pro is that all use cases I know of (other than gaming) work better with some sort of pass through HUD display like the HoloLens. They spent a ton of company resources, weight and power making the wrong form factor emulate the right form factor, and are shipping with zero killer apps. You can’t even let your friends play with it without getting it re-fit to their head at the Apple Stor…

There were lots of rumors that Apple was working on both AR glasses and VR goggles, but had to focus on the latter because the tech just isn't there to do glasses right.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#738

Post by onethought »

Facemelters wrote: post #457
onethought wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s genuinely better than a 5k monitor. In the recent update it now lets you mouse off your Mac and onto vision apps just like iPad hands over. It made me switch my desk setup to have the desk attached to my chair so I can have 360 range of screens. The resolution is stupidly high. I’ve attempted a coding workflow in all of the quests and it just wasn’t possible. It’s awesome in vision

please take a picture of this setup

A swivel chair - with a desk across the arm rests. It’s not an impressive looking setup… outside of vr.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#739

Post by InfiniteTitan »

in3d wrote: post #619
zmmmmm wrote: post #481

Coming from a senior Oculus lead, the most interesting thing about this write up for me, is what it lacks: it says almost nothing about the software stack / operating system. Still 100% talking about hardware at the bottom and end user applications at the other end. But there is no discussion of the platform which to me is actually the highest value proposition Apple is bringing here. In short: Apple has made a fully…

None of this matters compared to the number of apps available. Given the high price of the Vision Pro and the resulting low sales, it would make little business sense for app developers to invest in creating apps for it instead of for the Quest 3.

> Given the high price of the Vision Pro and the resulting low sales, it would make little business sense for app developers to invest in creating apps for it instead of for the Quest 3.

For sure. That’s exactly how it’s played out in iOS vs Android. No developer makes anything for the higher priced, small market iOS, right?

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#740

Post by crooked-v »

jsjohnst wrote: post #729
tracerbulletx wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are more than enough higher income people who would pay 5k just for a thing to watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane.

> watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane. As someone who’s worn mine to watch movies on multiple flights, the problem is two fold. 1. The device is ridiculously hard to get into “travel mode” on a plane. Especially if the device was powered off previously and you have to enter a passcode. Each time the “tracking was lost” notification is shown it forces you to start over…

I recently gave it a try and it immediately prompted me to turn on travel mode after putting in the passcode (though, yes, that part was difficult).
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